Day 37 - Inverkip to Dunfermline

12 May 2023

Leaving Inverkip, our GPS system did us proud and managed to get us to Lennoxtown, a little village north of Glasgow where our Duff and Buchanan family lived in the mid-1800s. To get there we travelled through vivid green farmland and multi-coloured forests on quite narrow roads (but two lane) as I slowly got to grips with just how wide the rental car is. I’m feeling more confident with driving it than I did at the beginning of the day. At Lennoxtown we found the Campsie church which looked magnificent set up on the hill surrounded with gravestones and trees, however as we got closer it was clear that the church was a ruin with no roof and being taken over with vegetation. Sadly there had been a fire in 1984 which caused extensive damage to the roof and interior. The crows squawking, leaning gravestones, overcast day, and church ruin made for an amazing atmosphere as we explored the graveyard. We were very lucky to find the memorial stone for Mum’s 4^th Gt Grandparents, Peter Buchanan and Katherine MacLaren, which had been erected by their son Robert Buchanan. Mum’s 3^rd Gt Grandfather, Hastie Duff, is also buried in this same churchyard but we were unable to find any trace of him. In the 1851 census, Hastie (love this name!) was living on Crosshill Street, which Mum and I managed to find. The street has many old homes on it and it was nice to think that Hastie would have known these homes, even if they weren’t the one that he lived in. The view along the street to the base of a very steep hill was lovely.

Top left photo shows the back yard of The Foresters House in Inverkip, with the grinding stone that John Fairbairn would have used, plus the statue given to the family by Lady Octavia Shaw Stewart. Photo on the right is of the Campsie church (sadly burnt out). 

After Lennoxtown, we travelled north of Stirling to the picturesque village of Doune, which Outlander fans would recognise immediately as being the town which Claire and Frank stayed in before she went through the stones. It is easy to see why Doune is used in filming – it really did feel like we were stepping back in time (if you ignored the cars and tractors!). Hastie Duff’s wife, Elizabeth Buchanan, was born in Doune and her parents (the Peter Buchanan and Katherine MacLaren who died in Lennoxtown) were married in the church at nearby Kilmadock. Again, we found the locals so helpful in directing us to a walk that would take us to the ruined Kilmadock church. After parking the car in what seemed the middle of nowhere, we walked for about 15 minutes on a path with fields on one side and forest on the other until we reached a crest and looked down on the graveyard and remains of the Kilmadock parish church. It really was quite a moment and took our breath away. Very little remains of the church, but we were still able to read many of the gravestones. There were some very old MacLaren and Buchanan ones that might fit in – more research needed!

Top photos are from walking in the forest to the Kilmadock parish church. Bottom right is the church ruin and graveyard. It is bounded on two sides by rivers and all we could hear was the sound of water and lambs bleating. Bottom left photo is the Doune village centre.

It has been a lovely day of exploring the Scottish countryside and getting more of an idea of where our ancestors hailed from. We will be based in Dunfermline for the next couple of days, and I’m looking forward to visiting the Abbey tomorrow.